HENNESSY DC Lunar New Year Event

Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations of the year among East and Southeast Asian cultures, including Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean communities, among others. Unlike America and other countries, the new year is celebrated on multiple days. This year, the new year started on February 1st. The first new moon kicks off the new year and lasts the first 15 days of the first month of the lunar calendar.

Each new year has a zodiac sign that corresponds to an element. This year the water tiger represented lunar new year. The tiger comes up every 60 years representing strength, bravery and clearing away evil.

Andrew Roby Events had the pleasure of designing the Hennessy DC Lunar New Year event at Officina Restaurant. The goal of this DC event was to create an experiential style event that allowed guests to see touches of the lunar new year celebration. The DC venue welcomed an intimate guest list allowing them to interact with the brand as well as several activation stations.

As guests entered into the cocktail hour space, they had a chance to have photos taken in front of a custom step and repeat. Artist Enli Zhang created a custom piece specifically for Hennessy which we then turned into the main backdrop for the step and repeat. The space also included a good fortune tree that allowed guests to tie custom wishing cards onto the tree. A wishing tree is essentially an individual tree which has been chosen specifically, and is used for offerings and wishes. These trees are identified as having a special traditional, spiritual, or cultural significance.

Hennessy logo decals adorned the floor to ceiling windows in the rooftop space. A classically trained Chinese calligraphy artist created custom traditional scrolls, stamped with the Hennessy Chinese logo and messages of each guest’s choosing – luck, fortune and well wishes for the New Year.

As guests finished meeting each other, they were invited into a private dinning room for a multi-course dinner experience. We carried into this space the same design concept from the step and repeat in the cocktail room. To help elevate this space, we created a focal point by using a 5-foot tiger covered in flowers. Each table allowed us to create a custom experience using Hennessy branded chopsticks, charger plates with Artist Enli Zhang’s design on it and incorporating Narcissus into the centerpieces. The hanging lanterns sealed the environment into one that celebrated the Hennessy DC Lunar New Year event.

As always, guests did not want to end such an experience, but once they did, they were greeted by custom gift bags to later remind them of the experience they had.

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